software, we combined the best of each design into
the low-cost service robot platform, which will be
used by all teams in subsequent offerings of the
course.

Seminar Discussions and Course Logistics
In parallel to the semester course project, the students present and discuss research papers on a variety
of topics relating to integrated AI. These topics are
shown in table 1. In addition, the syllabus includes
discussions on project proposals (including
Heilmeier’s Catechism;
3 see figure 5), project design,
and team coordination. Each student’s grade is determined based on a combination of individual marks
(research paper presentations and summaries, class
participation, contributions to the project) and group
marks (project proposal, design document, final
report and project, and the project website and code
repository).

Reflections
Challenging project-driven courses are remarkable in
how they bring out students’ enthusiasm. Even
before the course started, students were especially
excited that the project gave them an opportunity to
integrate their knowledge from numerous other
courses into a single challenging project. This attitude persisted throughout the course, all the way to
the final project evaluations. During the final robot
demos, the teams eagerly showcased their robots,
with all members of the class actively engaged in asking questions and investigating each other’s creations. These demonstrations were held in public
areas of the university, attracting the interest of
passersby.

One of the largest challenges faced during the first
offering of this course was simply getting started with
such a challenging project. By far, the largest hurdle
to getting started was creating the hardware platform. For example, it took several weeks alone to
explore different options for the power system for the
mobile robot. The final low-cost platform represents
a balance between functionality, low cost, ease of re-creation, and modularity, aggregating a semester’s
worth of exploration across four separate robot
teams. This common platform allows teams to get
busy immediately with developing the functionality

Figure 4. Prototype Service Robots.

These service robots were developed by students in CIS 700 at the University of Pennsylvania in fall 2015. These robots were used for a variety of
tasks, including waiting tables at a simulated restaurant, object search and
retrieval, and voice-driven navigation.